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Blue
“He’s a good man.”
Venla’s Finnish accent shortens and rounds the word good, and for a moment, I think she just called me a god man.
I shake my head slightly, trying not to fidget. It’s hard to watch Venla on the stand.
“He is a good man,” she says again, twisting her hands. “He has a good heart. I don’t understand why you want to punish him for trying to help me, for trying to help a young girl who was in terrible danger.”
Major Carlin, the same woman who was at my Article 32 hearing, doesn’t answer Venla’s implied question. Instead, she stares at her notes for a second. She’s about five minutes into her cross-examination.
Before Carlin started, Holmlund had taken Venla through Aziza’s story. She told the panel how Aziza showed up at the base one day, asking for refuge.
“She was just a little girl,” Venla said, her voice trembling. “Way too young to be married. And she was afraid of her older brothers. She needed help.”
I closed my eyes, remembering the girl with the huge brown eyes who ran away and hid the first time I came to the guest house where Venla was staying on the base.
I sometimes helped out with the humanitarian efforts, distributing food in the villages, teaching soccer skills to the young boys. So did the other guys. It was something the Army encouraged.
Venla tried many times to persuade the local mothers to send their daughters to school, but few ever went. Most of the time, their fathers wouldn’t allow it.
Aziza was the exception. Her father was proud that his daughter was being educated.
But then Aziza’s father died. I never found out why. He just got sick one day, I guess. Her mother had died years earlier.
And the four older brothers weren’t like the father. They pulled Aziza out of school and arranged a marriage for her. They said if she didn’t do it, they would kill her for dishonoring her family.
So Aziza ran away.
“She stayed a couple of weeks with me on the base,” Venla told the panel. “And then I was able to arrange for her to live with an uncle in Kabul, an uncle who would let her keep going to school. Who would not force her to marry.”
Her voice started shaking even more, and I couldn’t help dropping my head and staring at my hands spread out on the table.
“But her brothers came to the base,” she went on, “and persuaded her to come home. They promised that she wouldn’t have to marry, after all. They promised they would not hurt her.”
There was a moment of silence. I’d looked up. Venla’s mouth was quivering.
“I knew they were lying to her,” she said, taking a breath to steady herself. “But she was just a child. She believed them. She wanted to believe them. So she went home with them. I couldn’t stop her.”
Venla had gripped the arms of her chair and then quickly told the panel the rest of the story: How Aziza’s younger brother, a twelve-year-old kid who’d played in my soccer clinics, came to the base to tell us Aziza was being sent away the next day.
“She was being sent away to be married. At least, I thought that’s what was happening. I hoped that…so I…I didn’t know what to do,” Venla sputtered. “So I went to the base commander. And he said there was nothing more that could be done, that she’d gone home willingly, and that it was a family matter, and he could not get involved.
“So I went to Blue. He was the only one willing to help.”
I could hear the bitterness in her tone. I remembered how angry she’d been by the time she came to me.
Holmlund had doubled back then, getting Venla to talk some more about all I’d done to help the locals, about Aziza’s helplessness and her terrible predicament.
But now, during the cross-examination, Carlin is zeroing in on Venla.
“So you’d been told by the base commander there was nothing further the Army could do to help Aziza, is that correct?” Carlin asks, her tone sharpening.
Venla nods.
“And yet, knowing that, you went to Specialist Daniels, who had absolutely no authority to do anything, is that correct?”
Venla nods again, and I curl my hands into fists.
“Did you ask Specialist Daniels to go out on his own to try to rescue Aziza?”
Venla’s mouth opens and closes a couple of times. “No, I…it was his idea to do that, but I knew about it. I just didn’t know what else to do, and he said it would be easy for him to—”
Carlin cuts her off. “And when Specialist Daniels did not return from the village, you then went to Sergeant Richie Cunningham, Specialist Jonathan Monti, and Corporal Kyle Hudson, and you begged them to head off on yet another unauthorized and dangerous mission to get him back.”
Holmlund shoots to his feet. “Objection. Ms. Ahlstrom is not on trial here, Your Honor.”
The judge hesitates for a moment. “Sustained,” he finally says. “Move on, major.”
Carlin nods and looks down at her notes again. Then she looks over at me for a second before shifting her eyes back to Venla.
“Ms. Ahlstrom,” she says more gently, “what happened to Aziza?”
Jesus. Saying it more gently doesn’t change the fact that it’s a brutal question. And Carlin knows it.
Venla sighs and casts her eyes to the floor. “I don’t know,” she says so quietly I can barely hear her.
Carlin asks her to repeat it.
“I don’t know what happened to her.” Venla’s speaking louder now and looking straight at Carlin. “I tried to find out, but I couldn’t. No one would tell me anything. She was just…gone.”
Her voice is desolate, and she shakes her head. From where I’m sitting, I can see tears in her eyes.
“After a while,” Venla goes on “I decided I was done. I couldn’t do it anymore. I decided to go home. To Finland.”
* * *
When Venla is done testifying, she passes me on her way out of the courtroom. I give her a weak smile, and she smiles sadly back.
Then Holmlund moves rapidly through two more character witnesses. They’re the same guys—my drill instructor and first sergeant at boot camp—who testified at the earlier hearing about my good character. My “sterling” character, as one of them puts it.
Until, of course, I destroyed my sterling character by putting my platoon at risk and then repeatedly lying about it.
Again, I can barely sit here and listen to them.
And then, Holmlund calls Bryson to the stand.
I don’t turn around, but I can feel the stir in the courtroom as he walks down the aisle. Bryson’s always claiming the world has forgotten him, forgotten his music. He was never super famous. But plenty of people still remember him.
Plenty of people, especially in the industry, know contribution he’s made, and still listen to his music.
Bryson eases into the witness chair on the stand, and his eyes rest on me for a moment.
It’s almost worse than when Venla was up there. I am utterly ashamed that my mentor, someone I’ve looked up to since I was a kid, has been brought to this. It’s awful that he’s felt obligated to spend the last couple of months defending me.
I’d almost rather not have had any character witnesses at all. It’s not fair to any of them.
Holmlund asks Bryson about my audition for Ikana and about the kind of student I’ve been. It’s all I can do not to start bawling like a baby when he tells the courtroom that I have a gift, that indefinable something that he recognized the first time I played in front of him.
I stare at my fingers, gritting my teeth, as Bryson describes my song-writing ability, my musical instincts. My skin feels like it’s on fire when he starts talking about how passionate I am, what a hard worker I am.
Then, although the panel has already heard direct evidence to the contrary, he tells them I am a “fundamentally good” person.
I can’t even look at him.
By the time Bryson leaves the stand, I’m feeling sick to my stomach. But I swallow hard and meet his eyes as he passes my table. He nods at me with a look full of compassion, and it’s all I can do to nod back.
~~~
Only five chapters left in the story. What do you think is going to happen to Keegan and Blue?
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